Beauty and the Beta Blocker

Random summer hookups are an important part of the gossip ecosystem. Who can forget Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston, Leonardo DiCaprio and Blake Lively, and Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson (technically started in spring, but it was a summer romance). 

Celebrities, like the rest of us, go absolutely bananas in the summer. And Tom Brady and Sofia Vergara are a surprise not because they don’t work on paper - two super hot people on a yacht together? That’s math. It is a surprise because of the vibes. 

Tom Brady is clean cut, he’s successful, he’s a certain version of America personified and he is rizzless. Tom Brady has negative rizz. He never recovered from fumbling Gisele, not because she’s a super model but because he seemingly had a dream life. The way he waffled on his marriage and career, and both ended anyway, caused a dip in his public persona that he’s never come back from. He was primed to retire a legend and instead people bully his TV appearances. It’s like watching QB1 being metaphorically stuffed in a locker. 

Celebrities have a halo (that we give them) but even when Tom’s next to someone like Kate Hudson – the queen of flirty and fun – it always looks like he’s mid-conversation about tax codes and Excel spreadsheets. He’s in a lot of places but not high impact on the gossip scale.

Sofia Vergara, meanwhile, is glamorous, fun, and game. And she’s always on vacation! Not Dua Lipa level, but close. She is sparkling and of course, mega hot. If Tom can hang with her for the summer and keep her entertained, we might need to adjust his perceived charm level to somewhere above zero.

And like a lot of gossip, the way this story played out is interesting as the first hint from Page Six is that it’s a summer romance. Page Six has a lot of complimentary reporting about Tom Brady, including exclusives (like when he was with Irina Shayk) and sympathetic reporting about him being “stunned” that Gisele moved on and had a baby. 

TMZ followed up like a cold shower, saying the two are part of a group of celebrities jetting around Europe and it’s fun, but it’s not exactly Under the Tuscan Sun. So someone is pressing forward and someone is tempering expectations.

The energy mismatch of this pairing is a little questionable but this is why summer flings are such good gossip. They are chaos. And we need some good chaos right now. Bring on the randomness. Charlize Theron and Jake Gyllenhaal! Reese Witherspoon and Zac Efron! Angelina Jolie and Ben Affleck! Michael B. Jordan and Jessica Simpson! Mindy Kaling and John Mayer! Colin Farrell and Jane Fonda! We need all of the single celebrities to get out there and make some questionable choices, the messier the better.

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Attached - Sofia Vergara and Tom Brady with Kate Hudson and Dakota Johnson last week in Ibiza.